Collins Puts Good Spin On Gossip Through The Ages

When Gail Collins ran the Connecticut State News Bureau in the 1970s and wrote columns for many state newspapers, she was admired for her political savvy and sense of what makes a timely story.

She's even sharper now.

Now a member of The New York Times editorial board after stints as a columnist for New York Newsday and The New York Daily News, Collins has written the couldn't-be- timelier ``Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics.''

This well-researched book gives a valuable historical context to the hoohah over President Clinton's personal peccadilloes.

Delicious dish -- or, as Collins puts it, ``unverified information about a person's private life that he or she might prefer to keep hidden'' -- has been savored ``since privacy was invented.''

The American public has always passed these tales around. But the process reaches dizzying speed today through such unbridled media as talk radio and the Internet.

While much of it is pure rumor, the dirt that won't wash away tells us something about its target and illuminates our national anxieties, Collins says. For example, gossip about politicians with black mistresses abounded during the pre- Civil War era and rumors of wife- beating presidents arose during the women's suffrage movement.

She sees three great arcs of national gossip. The first began in the 1820s and ran roughly -- and it was pretty rough, she makes clear -- until the end of that century.

The second, a quieter time, focused on entertainment and sports celebs and gave rise to such sleazy publications as ``Confidential.'' Those old enough mayremember such gems as ``The Dollies That John Foster Dulles Couldn't Handle.''

The third, which still goes on, began with Vietnam and Watergate. As respect for politicians plummeted, the level of nasty public commentary skyrocketed.

Some things have changed. The sleaziest tales now wag the formerly cautious media dog: outrageous and unverified rumors are reported simply because they exist, not because they've been proved accurate. Worse, the Internet -- ``a vanity press for the demented,'' as her friend Lars Erik Nelson of The Daily News calls it -- transmits the most rank slanders to the gullible.

Ironically entertainers, who once were the targets of the juiciest gossip, are now so carefully managed they have become less vulnerable. Politicians, however, ``lack the critical armor of popularity that would allow their handlers to bargain for the best possible treatment.''

Where do we go from here? Collins suggests we may be so nauseated or numbed by ugly political gossip -- and polls seem to bear her out -- that we may be ready for another quiescent period in which we will choose more civilized political discourse.